In a press release from Paramount sent out on Thursday and reported by Dark Horizons.com very early on Friday, they announced that four more actors have joined the cast of the M. Night Shyamalan-directed The Last Airbender (based on the hit Nickelodeon TV series “Avatar: The Last Airbender”):
Aasif Mandvi: Best known for his correspondent work for “The Daily Show,” Mandvi will be playing Commander Zhao, a leader for the Fire Nation army.
Shaun Toub: Last seen as the doctor who helps Tony Stark build his first suit in Iron Man, Toub will be playing Uncle Iroh, a father figure to the Fire Nation’s Prince Zuko.
Cliff Curtis: Best known for his leading role in the New Zealand indie Whale Rider, Curtis has been cast as Prince Zuko’s father and lead villain Fire Nation Lord Ozai.
Also cast in the film has been Keong Sim, who will play one of the Earthbenders. Sim’s IMDB bio isn’t very extensive, but since he’s a New Yorker, I’m definitely going to keep my eye on him.
Now, for the uncomfortable part.
So far, I haven’t taken an “official” stance in the ongoing debate over Shyamalan and Paramount’s Airbender casting choices, and I don’t think I’ll do so in this post either, because that’s not what it’s for.
If there’s anything that both the argument about racism in the science-fiction and fantasy genres (colloquially known as RaceFail ’09) and Jon Stewart’s televised evisceration of Jim Cramer and CNBC taught me is that the idea of trying to tackle a large important issue in less than 500 words in a forum that isn’t built for such things isn’t fair to anyone to whom this really matters—which should be everyone in the entire freaking world. Hell, there are over 3,800 words alone in this LiveJournal post of “key” links about Race Fail ’09 alone, and that’s only the titles!
However, I’m not going to keep you from wanting to post your opinions, as long as you can be mature about it and refrain from being trollish or total dicks about it. There have been a lot of interesting comments made to the original post about the lead Airbender roles being cast, and I, too, am eager to see if anything will change as a result.
Thanks for your time.
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